Show MOB LAW In our patches this morning will be found an account of the brutal act of a mob in Steelville Mo whIch undertook un-dertook tolynch F P Wallace who is in jiil in that place accused of the murder mur-der of a whole family by the name of Logan The mob without much difficulty diffi-culty broke down the jail guards resistance re-sistance and brought the prisoner out I nearly dead from terror They could extort no confession of guilt from his white lips so they hung him up until 1 he was half strangled to death Upon gaining his consciousness he still maintained that lie was innocent and soaic is th rapidly jucreaivg crjT rri I S lt 4fc II touche i with pity for the halfd ad and I terrified wretch pleaded for meny which at Jast was grunted and the accused man went bacK to prison to await hi trial The officer in charge of the prson were certainly deserving of blame in i this matter as the threats of lynching have been made io f r several days past and irsufficien means were adopted to protect the life of the accused seeing that they hud reason enough to believe an attempt would be made to murder thtir prisoner pris-oner Officials everywhere might profit by the example set by Hon James R Brown Circuit Judge in one of the ju i 2ial districts of Georgia A negro boy of 13 bud beesn ccuvicted ia the Judge Jourt of an attempt to rape the person of a white girl some 10 years old The rape was not committed but the at tempt was made The penalty I I of the crime is impridoumen at hard labor for period of not mor than twenty years The judge in this case sentenced the offender to twelve years imprisonment The people were very much dissatisfied with this penalty and threats of lynching ttio buy were freely made The fact of the contemplated contemp-lated movement came to the knowletig of Judge Brown and in the presence uf the juries and of the public he directed tne sheriff in the event that he found such a movement actively on foot to place in the jail six resolute men armed with double barrelled shotguns with orders in case a mob assaulted the jail that each of the sin would fire upon them with deadly aim and stop their movement by shooting down those who were most pro inet in it Having learned that the sheriff feared he could not get a half dozen men who would agree to take position in the jaIl with shotgnus and execute the judge s > 3rder and that the sheriff felt some trepidation on the question Judge Brown was more than ever determined that the laV should take its course and that the boy should not bo hanged He then called the sheriff to him and said to him privately It you find any difficulty in getting men who havo the courage or the will to take position with th lr shotguns and execute instructions given from the court I will hold myself in roadmaaa to obey your order summon mon ma as one ot tho six and I will see to it that the mob li stopped at whatever what-ever cost that the jail is not broken open and that the sentence of the courts court-s executed If we had more of such judges scat tered through the country there won Id be fewer of these outrages by mobs which are a disgrace to our civilization |